The US said it would consider revoking its recent designation of Yemen’s Houthis as terrorists if the Iran-backed militants cease their shipping attacks in and around the Red Sea.
“My hope is that we can find diplomatic off-ramps,” Tim Lenderking, President Joe Biden’s special envoy for Yemen, told reporters in an online press briefing on Wednesday. “To find ways to deescalate and allow us to pull back, eventually, the designation and of course to end the military strikes on Houthis’ military capability.”
The comments suggest Washington is once more leaning on diplomacy after a nearly three-month-long campaign of airstrikes against Houthi facilities in Yemen. Those have failed to stop the group’s missile and drone attacks against merchant vessels and warships, though the US says it has managed to degrade the Houthis’ military capabilities.
Asked by Bloomberg News after the briefing if the US was offering the Houthis a quid pro quo to end their attacks on ships in return for revoking the designation, Lenderking said: “We would certainly study that but not assume it’s an automatic thing.”
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